What was needed was to be human even if just for a moment. Employees acting on behalf of companies tend to do the very worst things that they would never condone if it happened to them or someone they love. In this case the obvious thing would be to give the person as much time off as needed to recover, not to ask her to come back in because there wasn't any maternity leave to be taken. This whole adherence to 'the letter' rather than 'the spirit' is highly annoying.